topic Re: Printing from VMS to another system passing it a non-vms username in Operating System - OpenVMS

Printing from VMS to another system passing it a non-vms username

Rich Hearn — Fri, 30 May 2008 13:06:52 GMT

Hi all,

I'm looking to print to another system (Win 2003) from vms 8.3 passing it a username that is not valid in Authorize. Therefore print/user is not an option, since the name used on the Windows side is the alpha-numeric id used by Windows for that vms username. I'm using Multinet 5.2 for the networking software. Am I forgetting to include any more needed details? Any ideas come to mind?

Tnx,
Rich

Re: Printing from VMS to another system passing it a non-vms username

labadie_1 — Fri, 30 May 2008 13:13:49 GMT

Hello

There was an article

Using LPR-LPD to Print from OpenVMS Clients to Windows NT Printers
available at
http://h18000.www1.hp.com/support/asktima/dec_third_party/00999001-9AFF3077-1C
007A.html

But it is no longer available.

I do not know what HP does about the "old" articles, but it seems they just disappear

:-(

Re: Printing from VMS to another system passing it a non-vms username

Rich Hearn — Fri, 30 May 2008 13:31:43 GMT

Labadie,

Thanks for the response and info on it. That would've been interesting to read - if nothing else.

Rich

Re: Printing from VMS to another system passing it a non-vms username

Karl Rohwedder — Fri, 30 May 2008 13:36:43 GMT

Is the printer on the win2003 side directly connected to the system or a network printer?
Perhaps you may connect to it directly via network? The DCPS software on VMS supports many printermodels today.

Otherwise export the printer on windows via LPD/LPR and create a queue on VMS to it.

regards Kalle

Re: Printing from VMS to another system passing it a non-vms username

Rich Hearn — Fri, 30 May 2008 13:59:04 GMT

kalle,

Thanks for the response and suggestion, but we're not running DCPS software. Even if we were my problem is trying to find a way to "pass" a username to Windows that is not the vms username. Does DCPS do that? I also know the folks here are not going to want to spend $$$ to do it.

Tnx agn
Rich

Re: Printing from VMS to another system passing it a non-vms username

Karl Rohwedder — Fri, 30 May 2008 15:55:18 GMT

Regarding $$$:

The DCPS license is bundled into VMS, so no costs.

regards Kalle

Re: Printing from VMS to another system passing it a non-vms username

Hoff — Fri, 30 May 2008 16:16:21 GMT

So you really want to spoof the print banner?

The printer can generate the banner, the host can generate the banner, or sometimes the software that generates the print job. This would be Windows generating the banner here?

The Process folks are very likely to know the options and capabilities of their lpr client in detail (I can't see how HP is involved here as anything other than a bystander, given this is Multinet and Windows), and there are various lpr clients around.

As for Windows lpd and its user mapping, donno.

And FWIW, the article http://h18000.www1.hp.com/support/asktima/dec_third_party/00999001-9AFF3077-1C007A.html
is presently available, but it targets Windows NT 3.5, 3.5.1, and circa 1995-vintage IP environments. It's slim. And dated. And not (from what I can see) relevant.

Printing through Windows (or any other host system, including OpenVMS) usually isn't worth the hassles that tend to ensue.

Buy a (new or used) NIC for the printer (in-board or out-board) and connect the printer directly to the network.

Or (better) only purchase printers have NICs. The hassles of low-end printers and served printers quickly make up for any savings.

Very few organizations ever want to spend $$$, either. You've already spent more time and effort working on this than you would have on the NIC or on a slightly more capable printer. And once folks work with NIC printers, they almost never look back. (Kinda like seat heaters in a car anywhere that gets cold. They look like a waste of $$$. Once you have them, you understand why the $$$ was worth it. Printer NICs are the same sort of convenience purchase.)

In the interim (and since you're almost certainly going to continue on the present course, even if you decide to get a NIC), check with Process about their LPR client. The HP client can control the flag page request to some degree. (Though not the username, from a quick look, beyond the PRINT /USER mechanism you've tried.)

Re: Printing from VMS to another system passing it a non-vms username

Richard Whalen — Fri, 30 May 2008 16:29:30 GMT

You haven't really told us what printer protocol is being used and what sort of user identification the Windows system needs.

The MultiNet LPR print symbiont does not send any user identification information to the remote system, so it may be possible that none is needed.

If you are just looking for a header page that identifies the user, then setting the queue on the VMS system up correctly may be all that you need to do.

Re: Printing from VMS to another system passing it a non-vms username

Rich Hearn — Fri, 30 May 2008 18:35:17 GMT

1st off, Thank you all for your responses.

Kalle, after my last response, I went off and got the SPD on DCPS in which I found out what is was/did. But thank you for providing that info for me.

Hoff, Thank you for the pointer to the Windows Doc (and providing it - I assume). It was worth reading as far as I am concerned.

Trying to respond to your note will clarify a lot of things to all (it did to me).

While working on this, I found out that "the printer" on Windows was actually a Linux LPD queue that took what-ever was given to it and passed it through a script to convert the contents to PDF then use the Alpha-numeric to send the results to the submitting user (alpha-numeric id). Finding that out, I took the Windows box "out of the loop" and went direct to the Linux box.

Richard, tcpdumps provided some much needed clues as to what was being sent over to the Linux box and therefore, I decided to change my approach.

In our organization, "everybody else" uses an Alpha-numeric id for login; VMS uses real Alpha usernames (historic).

Knowing that Multinet only passes "Remote" as a username to the other boxes, I decided to concatenate a PS header onto the file to print and do the xlation needed to pre-pend the Alpha-numeric to the file name being sent. The script writer was then able to find and extract it for his script to process.

Turns out the queue on vms is just a pointer to the Linux box & it's queue. It does work tho'.

Thanks again to all for your thoughts and help,

Rich